The Joan Rivers Archives

There are words that come to mind when you think of Joan Rivers—irreverent, insulting, Botox. Organized doesn't necessarily pop up on the list, but organized the lady is: For the past thirty-some years, Rivers has been filing each and every joke she's written (at this point she's amassed over a million) in a library-esque card cabinet housed in her Upper East Side apartment. The jokes—most typed up on three-by-five cards—are meticulously arranged by subject, which Rivers admits is the hardest part of organizing: "Does this one go under ugly or does it go under dumb?" Here—and in the coming pages—she shares her favorites with GQ. —Lauren Bans

Photo: Getty Images

"I always get my jokes down on pieces of paper right away—backs of matchbos, whatever. No one is allowed to throw a piece of paper out in my house, because on the back of a laundry list there may be a joke."

"This goes back to the '80s, about Victoria Principal. But you could sub in Paris Hilton and it's still a great joke. I'm very green—I can recycle."

"I always say, "What are we going to do with these cards when I die?" And my daughter, Melissa, said, "Give them to the Smithsonian, they take anything.' Anything. And they're not allowed to sell!"

"I never sit down to write jokes. I don't even have a desk at my house. My bathroom is like my office—I write on my bathroom-sink top."

There are words that come to mind when you think of Joan Rivers—irreverent, insulting, Botox. Organized doesn't necessarily pop up on the list, but organized the lady is: For the past thirty-some years, Rivers has been filing each and every joke she's written (at this point she's amassed over a million) in a library-esque card cabinet housed in her Upper East Side apartment. The jokes—most typed up on three-by-five cards—are meticulously arranged by subject, which Rivers admits is the hardest part of organizing: "Does this one go under ugly or does it go under dumb?" Here—and in the coming pages—she shares her favorites with GQ. —Lauren Bans